Does anyone work while their spouses do and need childcare for too-old-for-daycare children? If so, what do you do? I don't have any relatives that don't work. I guess I just never thought before that homeschoolers might need daycare and now I'm wondering what I'll do. Also, we're thrifty, but we still need both of our incomes.

we will be running into this in the fall, when DD is "supposed" to start K. Right now they go to an in home daycare on the days I work, and I honestly don't think current daycare will care if DD is there all day next fall. I think that DD might have a problem being there all day when all the kids her age now are at school. She gets bored easy, and the place they are at does not have a ton of structure (just a lot of free play). I'm fine with that for my 3 year old, but DD needs more structure and I'm not sure daycare is willing to sit down with her and work on some school activities that I can prepare ahead of time.

I am "hoping" that at some point between now and next fall we can find a new place to send them, preferably another homeschool family looking for a little extra cash, who would be willing to work with DD those two days along with her own kids. There is also a small chance my SIL would be willing to take the kids, and since she plans on homeschooling hers as well, I know she would be willing to work with DD for at least a half hour each day, and give her more structure.

We have several drop in childcare places in our area that accept children up to age 12. I know of one homeschooling family that dropped their older child there during the day. I don't think it's ideal and the center ended up having to tell the family he couldn't come anymore. I know this child and I think it had more to do with his behavior than anything else. Still, I think he'd have been happier in public or charter school because he was 10ish and in a setting all day with 2-3 year olds. I bet he was there 20+ hours a week and the family didn't send anything school related for him to work on. It was really kind of sad.

I think if I were in that situation I would look for one of two situations: 1) another hsing family with children that are a similar age as mine or 2) a retired person or couple who wouldn't mind doting on my kid and allowing him/her to tag along on errands and such. As a person who hs's and has an in-home daycare, it would be hard for me to have time to work with an older child unless he was doing the same things as DS-then it almost becomes me teaching him if I'm teaching DS and that may cause problems (don't know, just thinking out loud).

I like the older person idea because they could oversee work being done without interruption of other littles and your child could learn the value of being helpful to someone others. Perhaps more social interaction would happen also.